"Robert J. Sawyer offers some advice for fiction writers. To wit, he claims there are four "must-read" books: two by author and editor Orson Scott Card (Characters & Viewpoint and How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy) and two by agent Donald Maass (Writing the Breakout Novel and The Career Novelist). Sawyer calls The Career Novelist—which is subtitled "A Literary Agent Offers Strategies for Success"—"the best book on being a commercial-fiction writer ever written." And now he points out that Maass has made the book available for free as a pdf download. The 248-page, 11.8 Mb file is available from this page."